1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic information surveillance and security systems and, more specifically, to a Method and System for Collecting and Surveying Radio Communications From a Specific Protected Area of Operations in or Around a Compound.
2. Description of Related Art
The twenty-first century has seen a radical increase in the importance of both physical and communications security. Many facilities and operations areas: military bases, intelligence buildings, financial buildings, airports, etc. need greater radio communications security than ever before.
An example of the need for greater radio communications security is the operations area in and around airports. Today someone with a transmitter near the end of an airport runway can cause material damage and loss of life by attempting to disrupt communications between airport towers, TRACONs and the airplanes themselves.
Even traditionally sensitive areas such as military bases and intelligence buildings need the ability to detect and monitor radio communications in various areas inside them. For example, various areas, like prisons, are mandated by their security policy to be off-limits for cell phone use. Isolating and monitoring cell phone transmissions in those areas would automatically enforce the policy.
What is needed therefore in order to enhance radio communications security for sensitive areas of operation is an invention that has 1) The ability to quickly localize and monitor all radio communications, and 2) the ability to be calibrated to instantly determine the location of transmission sources for specific frequencies. Both must be applied to make such a system accurate. The user of this invention can use the system to isolate and monitor transmissions simply by specifying the geographic area of the transmission source to be monitored.
The term “calibration” is used in the Electronic Warfare environment to profile a land or air vehicle-based electronic detection system. The approach used to calibrate such a vehicle is to circle the vehicle with an electronic transmitter. The transmitter is periodically, at known locations, caused to transmit (potentially at different frequency bands of interest). The transmission detection equipment mounted inside of the vehicle is used to detect and record these transmissions. In this manner, blind spots, areas having anomalous reflective characteristics, and any other non-standard signal behavior will be detected and incorporated into the profile of the sensing equipment. Once calibrated, the vehicle's equipment performance is known and should not change unless there are equipment or structural changes made to the vehicle.
This type of calibration has never been done to create a profile for the electronic transmission characteristics of a physical compound or installation. An electronic transmission surveillance system monitoring a physical compound or installation would be much more accurate if the effects of the buildings, equipment, and other such things were known and taken into account by the transmission localizing system. It is this information that is the subject of the present invention.